If you don’t have time to read the full story:
- A new exhibit has gone up in downtown Hazard showing how spaces and buildings in the Perry County area can be redeveloped.
- The display is the result of a year long project where students and faculty from the University of Kentucky worked with the community to addresses specific challenges through design.
- This exhibit is open through June 24 and is located downtown at the future site of the Southeast Kentucky African-American Museum.
Residents and visitors to Hazard, Kentucky, can check out a new exhibit in downtown Hazard showing how spaces and buildings in the Perry County area can be redeveloped and revitalized. This exhibit, Studio Appalachia, is open through June 24, 2022.
The display is the result of a year long project where students and faculty from the University of Kentucky College of Design and the Sustainability Office worked with the community to addresses specific challenges in the Hazard area through design ideas. Eleven graduate students and four faculty from the School of Architecture and the School of Interiors partnered with the City of Hazard, Invision Hazard, Appalachians for Appalachia and the Mountain Association on Studio Appalachia throughout the year.
Each student team had a physical site to design a concept for that addressed community issues like the needs for additional job opportunities, affordable housing, recreation, and more.
For example, one student team developed a manufacturing site proposal for a product called cross-laminated timber, CLT, which is an engineered wood being increasingly used in construction. The proposed facility, which incorporates landscape art installations, is located on a reclaimed mine site near Highway 80 and reforested land. The students paired this project with a housing development design that would use the CLT from that facility in the construction of the houses.
“We’re excited to have completed the first of a three year project called ‘Climate Resilience through Community Resilience’ with our partners in Hazard,” Jeff Fugate, UK’s Acting Associate Dean for Administration + Urban & Environmental Design program, said. “Studio Appalachia will be an on-going project of the UK College of Design.”
“Climate Resilience through Community Resilience” will continue to feature a series of public exhibitions, as well as a digital archive illustrating a community vision for thriving in Appalachia in the time of climate change and economic uncertainty. As a partnership between UK’s College of Design, InVision Hazard, the City of Hazard and the Appalachian Arts Alliance, the project will both generate new works of art documenting the impacts of climate change in the community and a designer-facilitated community plan.
The current Studio Appalachia exhibit is in a unique space that is in the midst of being redeveloped into the Southeast Kentucky African American Museum and Cultural Center.
Please feel free to contact Les Roll at the Mountain Association with any questions on this collaboration at les@mtassociation.org.
